


What do you see, my blue-eyed son?

by Canon_Is_Relative



Series: Winter's Child [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:00:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several years after they move to the new home in the country, Calvin Jack comes home from university for Christmas, bringing a gift for his godfather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What do you see, my blue-eyed son?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ImpishTubist for betaing, and Small_Hobbit for advising me on the schooling terminology.

Cal tossed the cigarette out the car window but didn't roll it up despite the chill and the icy mist that was starting to come down. He turned up the heat and rifled blindly through the jumble of gift-wrapped packages on the passenger seat to retrieve the pack of chewing gum. The last thing he wanted to do was come home smelling like smoke. He should have just left the pack in his room back at uni, but...he sighed, drumming his fingers on the wheel. Smoking helped him think. Much as he hated to admit that. And smoking always made him think of Uncle Greg. He ran his fingers through his hair - grown out long and finally his natural colour again - before gripping the wheel with both hands and making the turn off to the little seaside village where his family now lived.

\---

Uncle Greg was sitting in the deep, cozy recliner that Calvin had helped him pick out when they were shopping for furniture for the cottage. He had his feet propped on the hearth, a fire crackling by his toes, Toby by his side. The hound noticed him before Greg did and lumbered to his feet, waddling over to lick Cal's hand and lean all his weight against him, gazing up adoringly through eyes gone cloudy with age. 

Cal knelt to greet him properly and when he looked up again Uncle Greg was watching them with a quiet smile, radiating his unabashed joy at seeing his godson.

"Hello, sunshine."

Cal bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, bending his head to give Toby one last kiss to the top of his head, buying time to quell the sudden surge of sadness and wipe his face clean of all distress. When he stood and crossed to the fire, he was grinning right back at his godfather.

"Hi, Greg." 

_He looks so tired._ Greg's face was thin and worn and he seemed to take up so much less space than Cal remembered. The chair looked massive around him. But his hand, when it cupped the back of Cal's neck and pulled him close as Greg kissed his forehead, was steady and strong. 

"Christ," his godfather murmured, blinking quickly, "s'good to see you."

\---

"Not bringing your friend home for the holidays, your dad tells me. Skye too busy for us, eh?"

"Skye's actually seeing someone," Cal said as casually as he could. "So he's out in bloody Cardiff, of all places, spending Christmas with his new man's family."

"I see." Greg leaned his chin on his hand. "And how are we feeling about this?"

Cal shrugged. "George is...fine. He's all right, anyway. And Skye's happy."

"Still makes plenty of time for you, I hope?"

"'Course he does," Cal grinned, feeling the warm glow 'round his navel that nudged at him whenever he got to talk about Skye. "What's a new boyfriend compared to a forever-friend, anyway?"

Greg laughed, his eyes crinkling and the happy lines around them radiating out until his whole face read as a topographical map of joy. "What, indeed. Well, maybe he can come out for New Year then, or your birthday. Haven't seen that boy in too long. And what about you, then, no new beau to bring home to your nosy family?"

Cal snorted, shaking his head. "Not this year. That's all on hiatus."

Greg looked puzzled and Cal lifted his eyebrows, scooting forward on the hearth to put a little more distance between his back and the fire.

"Dad didn't tell you that? Yeah I'm on a celibacy kick."

Greg laughed outright. "Don't tell me you've turned priest on us, Casanova."

Cal laughed too, shaking his head. "All these years I thought dad must be crazy. Now...I think he's kind of on to something. I definitely feel better, when I'm not worrying about all...that."

Still chuckling, Greg said, "He must be pleased."

"You'd think. But no, not actually. He's worried there's something wrong with me."

" _Sherlock_ is?"

"Yeah." Cal sighed, leaning his chin on his fist. "He just wants me to be able to enjoy 'normal' things. I tried to tell him, when we talked last week, that I've been reading a lot that makes me question the normalizing - or at least the _naturalizing_ \- of sex as a universal human instinct. I mean, people like dad prove that it's not that straightforward. But people like him, him as a scientist, I mean, also seem to privilege biology and physiology in any sort of study about sex and often ignore all the social factors. It's fascinating stuff."

"Sounds like it," Greg said softly, watching him closely. 

Cal shook himself out of musings, ears turning red. Not exactly the kind of conversation he usually got into with his godfather.

Greg chuckled at his sudden discomfort, mercifully changing the subject. "So, everything's going well?"

"Yeah." Cal glanced at him, then down at his clasped hands. "I, er, changed my course."

"Again? Oh, Calvin...are you ever going to finish a degree?"

Cal ducked his head sheepishly. "I haven't told them yet. But it's ok - I've actually done almost all the modules already, it'll just mean two extra classes this summer. I'll graduate a week before your birthday."

Uncle Greg blinked and looked away quickly, reaching out automatically for Toby. Cal felt his heart plummet. When Greg had gotten sick this last time, the terrible, _stupid_ thought that hadn't left him alone as they kept vigil in the hospital was that if he had kept with chemistry he would have graduated last spring and his godfather would have been able to see him in the ceremony. He'd asked papa bluntly how bad it was, when Greg came home. Papa had looked at him with sad eyes and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder as he told him that they had most likely celebrated Greg's last birthday. Ever since, the thoughts of the life events he would not share with his godfather had been haunting him. 

"What was wrong with journalism, I thought that work experience went well?"

Calvin swallowed thickly and shrugged. It _had_ gone well. Crime writing - assigned to Uncle Greg's old precinct, covering trials and cases and working against punishing deadlines with a group of fantastic people in the heart of London. Never a dull moment. But...

He shrugged again. "This family is buried in crime. I mean, it was your job. It's dad's passion. And when papa's not either along with him or writing up his cases, I mean he's a trauma surgeon, for God's sake. And it's...I mean...when I think about it, and think about _how many_ lives you three have saved, how much good you've done...it's...I'm so _proud_ to have come from you all."

Cal's voice sounded strange in his own ears and he snapped his fingers for Toby, burying his hands in the deep folds of skin and fur around his neck. It was easier to talk when his hands were busy, when he didn't have to look at his godfather.

"But sometime this past semester, it felt like I woke up and realized, there is so much...so _much_ beauty in the world, and I...I guess it feels like I've spent twenty-two years in darkness, thinking I'd make time for the good stuff later. But. Later is now, I've come to see."

He lifted his head finally, meeting Greg's dark eyes. "I need to live with my head up. That's what this feels like. Head up, eyes open, and not miss a single thing. I feel like I _see_ things that not everybody sees. I want to share it. That's how I want to live." He stopped, watching his godfather's face. Greg was looking back at him, head on one side, searching his face, still waiting. Cal licked his lips and continued, " _So_ , I've decided not to pursue journalism or police reporting. I've switched to a simple writing degree with a focus in creative nonfiction and, er, poetry."

"Poetry?" Greg lifted his eyebrows, the beginnings of a smile quirking his lips. 'Weren't you the one who always told me poetry was for pretentious people with an exalted opinion of themselves and too much time on their hands?"

Cal rolled his eyes and groaned, rubbing the back of his neck as his cheeks flushed. "That was, like, _six years ago._ And I'm sorry but I still don't like Eliot, so don't even start."

Greg grinned and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly. "Go on, then. You've been writing. Stories and poems? You going to let your godfather have a look, then?"

Cal looked away, drumming his fingers on his knees. "Er. Well, I suppose...I mean...I do have something...but it was meant to be your Christmas gift."

Greg's face looked lit up from within. "You wrote something for me?"

Cal ducked his head, blushing deeper, nodding as he reached for his bag. "Yeah. I...you don't have to read it now. And you don't have to like it either."

He pulled out a Christmas card with a sheet of gilt-edged letter paper folded inside of it, and handed it over.

He pushed himself back on the hearth to lean his back against the heated stones that framed the fireplace. He couldn't watch as Greg read, so he gazed out the window instead, waiting. 

When they had first come to look at this place, Cal had felt his heart sink. The floors sagged and the windows drafted, and the view from the window looked, to his eyes, incredibly bleak.

But Uncle Greg had fallen in love with it at once. He'd stood by this same window with his hand resting on the ledge, gazing out at the sloping meadow that fell away toward the sea in stands of coarse grass and bristling hedgerows. And so papa had dredged up some carpentry skills from God-knew-where and dad had started keeping bees and Calvin had taken Greg to find his perfect chair. His _retirement throne_ they'd called it, laughing, voices light.

And now Calvin can see how the grey of sea and sky and slumbering meadow is reflected in his godfather's eyes, his old, wise eyes that saw him on the day of his birth. How the knotty limbs of the wind-harried trees are a match for the corded veins that stand out in his godfather's hands, his firm, strong hands that held him when he was so new to this world. The rhythm of the sea, the rhythm of this life, eating and laughing, walking and breathing and winding down, preparing for sleep, it was set in motion long before he arrived and would continue on after his godfather had departed. Eyes and hands would see and hold him for the rest of his life. The song would go on, the story would never end.

Greg was looking at him, tears on his cheeks. The words, _Darling boy,_ caught in his throat, but Cal heard them anyway. He opened his arms to Cal and Cal went. The oversized chair embraced them both.

\---

"I didn't even hear him drive in."

"I wonder how long they've been asleep."

"Does Cal realise that Greg's...that this is likely his..."

"I think he does. I...worry for him, John."

"I know, love. I do, too."

"Look at them...do you remember this, the day Calvin was born?"

"When Greg fell asleep with him the rocker, yes of course I do. God. Twenty-two years, Sherlock. He is...Cal is... _we are all_ so lucky."

"Indeed."

"I worry for you, too, you know."

"Don't. I will...we will be all right. We have each other. And...we have this time together. We have this Christmas, John. We will have this lovely Christmas."

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Final Note:** I realized while getting this ready for posting that, while there is more coming from Imp, this is to be the last piece I contribute to this 'verse. This realization brings a mix of sadness and satisfaction that I'm not entirely sure how to express except in gratitude to all of you for following us along on this journey. I've been overwhelmed by the response to these stories, and so thrilled to get to know some of you along the way. Particular shoutouts go to Small_Hobbit for her boundless patience in answering my Stupid American Questions, and equally boundless enthusiasm for each new installment. And to Basaltgrrl, for her lovely and inspiring artwork for this series; for giving Calvin a face. 
> 
> It's been 11 months since ImpishTubist sent me what would become "The Worthwhile Things." I've never written, or been particularly interested in, kidfic, but she had me sold by the second paragraph as a drugged Sherlock mused to Lestrade, _M'gonna be a father. A baby. With - drooling. And toes. And - little clothes._ Imp, thank you for letting me share this world with you! Your vision of a family-by-choice, of Lestrade's strength and the strength of his relationship with Sherlock, has been so clear, so steady, and so true to these magnificent characters. I am so pleased with and so proud of this series, of you, of us! 
> 
> _Winter's Child_ may be winding down, but as Lestrade would say, "this Story never ends."


End file.
